# February, 2012

## Free-for-all Friday!

It's that time of the week again! What's been on your mind? What's giving you a headache? As always, drop your questions in the comments box and I'll get back to you as swiftly as I can!

## The maths of the decathlon

While I'm quite steadfastly refusing to be swept along with either Olympics fever or anti-games grumbling, I stumbled across the Wikipedia page for the decathlon in a moment of nostalgia for my 1980s childhood tapping the keys of the ZX Spectrum - a system that was kind of like an

## The crazy way you have to integrate logs

When you learn how to integrate by parts, you're probably told that a good rule of thumb is that if you have a power of $x$, that's going to be the thing you differentiate. That's a pretty good heuristic, but there are two places it breaks down: one, if you're

## Free for all Friday

Frankly, the first free-for-all-Friday of February! Fandabbydozy. You know the drill: whatever questions you've got about any part of A-level maths - AS, A2, further, whatever you like - bring 'em on. Something your teacher rushed through, or something you don't understand why... ask away!

## Why SOH CAH TOA is stupid (and what you can do instead)

My dad tells me that, above the blackboard in his 1960s Scottish high school, was a banner with the letters 'SOH CAH TOA' written out on it. Any questions about the banner were brushed off with a smile and 'you're not old enough to learn about SOH CAH TOA yet."